Holidays with the Family

This year our holiday celebration expanded from a family of 5 to 12.  This is K's first Christmas with the family, and we have a couple of cousins and their families visiting.  It's also our first Christmas with kids.  Sis and Bil arrived this afternoon with board games and a tree.  Tonight we decorated the tree (something we have missed the last couple of years).  It was nice taking out the ornaments and remembering when and why we bought them.  I'm looking forward to more holiday fun time with the family. 

Wishing you and your family a Happy Holiday!

Painting - Our new house & Parents' new house

My life has been a blur of painting lately.

Last week we painted our new house.  More Lessons learnt.

• Do not try to paint over a dark grey with a light color
• If you are going to do it PRIME first
• No matter what your eyes tell you about under tones of yellow, grey etc. Artisan White is just another type of white

We chose the Artisan white because the place is so small and needs a light color.  But if I had to do it again I'd choose just a tiny little more color.   We ended up doing 3 coats of paint.  Mostly we are done except for one room and the hall way which only has one coat.  These we are waiting until the bathroom renovations are done because thing might get scratched.

Tomorrow we are going to prime Mom and Dad's basement.  The same renovator is doing their basement and he's giving up money off for doing the painting.

Today - Was suppose to be

The first day of my married life.  K and I have talked about getting married on 12/12/12 for over a year now.  But it did not happen.  We are still planning on getting married, but life got busy and other things got in the way.

But I am a little disappointed that this yesterday came and went without much ado.

Ebates Canada

I've been using Great Canadian Rebates for a few years and it's been great.  I buy Groupons, Banana Republic, Sears, and Apple through this site and the rebates are paid to me via Paypal.  I read about Ebates being in Canada but did not feel the need to sign up for another one.  Until this weekend I wanted to buy some LivingSocial deals for dry cleaning and no rebates through Great Canadian Rebates.  I thought I'd check Ebates.

Sure enough Ebates offers 2% cash back on Living Social purchases.  Some more searching around and I found more rebates not offered like up to 2% on select departments at Amazon.ca (better than nothing), and 2% cash back on Apple products.  Always good to have more options.  For Canadian cash back rebates when you do your online shopping check out Great Canadian Rebates and Ebates.

Old tenants out new tenants In

It has been a busy weekend last weekend for K and I.  We had old tenants move out Friday November 30, and new tenants moving in Saturday December 1.  So after work in a few short hours we had to clean the place, including washing the carpet in one room, move the old fridge out, and receive deliver for a new fridge.

The old tenants were pretty good about leaving the place clean except for said carpet in one room.  I didn't really want to deduct them any money for that because they put up shelves in the kitchen and clean the garage.  Also, with carpet I feel if it's not done right and dried properly it could leave to issues later one, so I'd rather do it myself.  I have told K that when it comes time to replace the carpet, I'm going with laminate floors.  It's much cleaner, and easier to clean than carpet.

The new tenant were pretty happy with the shiny new fridge.  I think they were surprised that I gave them a new fridge.  But the old fridge was close to retirement when I checked, it had three shelves left and one of them was broken.  It was time.  I ordered it online from Sears which has pretty cheap fridges if you are not looking for all the bells and whistles.  Using Great Canadian Rebates I got a little cash back rebates as well.